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Science Section => Science General Discussion => Topic started by: SoldierofFortune on November 12, 2018, 05:18:32 PM

Title: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: SoldierofFortune on November 12, 2018, 05:18:32 PM
Not long after, one day will become
and a brave scientist will integrate the machine into a human's brain
and machine-organic brain co-operation will be succeeded....

Human's skull no longer permits the brain to enlarge.
However, once it has began, it's impossible to stop the intellectual evolution of human from improvement.

The new kind of humanity awaiting us is very exciting.
As i understand from the futurist's views, there will be humans like us again,
but they will function as pets to posthumans...

Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Hydra009 on November 12, 2018, 08:12:12 PM
Quote from: SoldierofFortune on November 12, 2018, 05:18:32 PM
Not long after, one day will become
and a brave scientist will integrate the machine into a human's brain
and machine-organic brain co-operation will be succeeded....
This has already occurred (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%80%93computer_interface#Human_BCI_research).

QuoteHuman's skull no longer permits the brain to enlarge.
However, once it has began, it's impossible to stop the intellectual evolution of human from improvement.
Arguably, that process started with drawing/writing.  For the first time, human knowledge was stored externally from the human brain.  Everything since has simply been refining this skill to encompass larger amounts of data viewable by more people and lasting longer.  First scrolls, then books, now vast electronic databases.

QuoteAs i understand from the futurist's views, there will be humans like us again,
but they will function as pets to posthumans...
Afaik, transhumanists want these changes to spread throughout the world as uniformly as possible as quickly as possible.  Of course, there will be early adopters, those behind the curve, and those who refuse outright.  The gameplan is to make this transition as painlessly as possible and thus avoid your scenario - the Mankind Divided scenario - as much as we possibly can.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Baruch on November 12, 2018, 09:15:22 PM
Furries and robot fans unite, you have only your humanity to lose!

Usually in the 50s, this was called frontal lobotomy.  But electroshock will suffice for the next great high .. voltage ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQa_sg4zN88
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: SoldierofFortune on November 12, 2018, 09:48:13 PM
Quote from: Baruch on November 12, 2018, 09:15:22 PM
Furries and robot fans unite, you have only your humanity to lose!

Usually in the 50s, this was called frontal lobotomy.  But electroshock will suffice for the next great high .. voltage ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQa_sg4zN88

I had electroshock therapy for 12 times as my treatment required;
I was wrongly diagnosed with bipolar disorder. However, my actual illness was alcoholism and related symptoms.
Because my of alcoholism and my then-obsessed love, they think i am experiencing manic episode...

In current med., There is an applications field of electroshoc theraphy...But, it causes me to forget 6 months past of the theraphy time.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Baruch on November 13, 2018, 05:56:48 AM
Electroshock is an obsolete therapy.  It is more used in Europe.  It is "good" for short term relief of depression.  But then so is suicide.  Modern therapy uses medications alone.  If someone suggests frontal lobotomy, just say no.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: GrinningYMIR on November 13, 2018, 10:54:38 AM
Sign me up for transhumanism, give me nanintes to fix my fucked up body
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Baruch on November 13, 2018, 01:23:00 PM
Quote from: GrinningYMIR on November 13, 2018, 10:54:38 AM
Sign me up for transhumanism, give me nanintes to fix my fucked up body

But with human engineering, all you get to be is a grey goo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo

Brought to you by the same folks who marketed the Edsel.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Shiranu on November 13, 2018, 03:11:41 PM
I personally find the idea of transhumanism terrifying, because we all know damn well only the ultra-rich will have true access to it, and the scraps that get handed down to the average man will be buggy and easily hacked/corrupted.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Baruch on November 13, 2018, 06:32:14 PM
Quote from: Shiranu on November 13, 2018, 03:11:41 PM
I personally find the idea of transhumanism terrifying, because we all know damn well only the ultra-rich will have true access to it, and the scraps that get handed down to the average man will be buggy and easily hacked/corrupted.

Plenty of sci-fi says ... are the ultra-rich even human to begin with?
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Shiranu on November 18, 2018, 06:02:42 AM
Have you heard of the Netflix series, "Altered Carbon"? I just started it this morning, and within the first 30 minutes has already really hooked me on dealing with the fears I had above.

People are able to be "reborn" in new bodies thanks to, it seems, consciousness being stored in disks along the spine; so long as the brain remains intact (i'm guessing a bullet to the brain would corrupt the "data") and the disk remains intact, humans can be reborn into a new "sleeve".

Without going into much detail, the main character is reborn in the body of a prisoner, property of an ultra-wealthy man who has lived for over 300 years through this process. At the birthing site, he meets a middle aged white woman... except as they are reuniting her with her family, it turns out she was a 7-year old asian girl who was murdered. She was given the body by the state for free, and the body she inhabits was that of a prisoner. If the family wanted something more appropriate or to their liking, they should have paid like everyone else.

That, to me, is exactly the future of transhumanism if humanity does not shift away from unregulated capitalism... if you are rich, you can have what you like... and if you are poor, you get whatever scraps those in power are willing to throw you.

There is nothing exciting about that world, only horrifying and barbaric.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Baruch on November 18, 2018, 11:10:18 AM
The past .. horrifying and barbaric
The present .. horrifying and barbaric
Therefore .. the future ...
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Sal1981 on November 18, 2018, 12:11:50 PM
We live a lot better than people a hundred years ago.

I don't know what the future has in store for us, we'll have to just make do and build a better present, like we've always done.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Baruch on November 18, 2018, 01:49:53 PM
Quote from: Sal1981 on November 18, 2018, 12:11:50 PM
We live a lot better than people a hundred years ago.

I don't know what the future has in store for us, we'll have to just make do and build a better present, like we've always done.

Caveman - evil with club
Modern -  evil with iPhone

Technical progress.  There was no Golden age in the past, and no Golden age in the future.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Hydra009 on November 18, 2018, 09:56:03 PM
Quote from: Shiranu on November 13, 2018, 03:11:41 PM
I personally find the idea of transhumanism terrifying, because we all know damn well only the ultra-rich will have true access to it, and the scraps that get handed down to the average man will be buggy and easily hacked/corrupted.
Isn't the root of the problem inequality and not transhumanism, though?

I mean, a hundred years ago I could make the case that only the rich would have electricity or supercomputers.  And while that was technically true - poor areas certainly lagged behind affluent urban areas - it's of course not the whole picture.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Shiranu on November 18, 2018, 10:31:06 PM
Quote from: Hydra009 on November 18, 2018, 09:56:03 PM
Isn't the root of the problem inequality and not transhumanism, though?

I mean, a hundred years ago I could make the case that only the rich would have electricity or supercomputers.  And while that was technically true - poor areas certainly lagged behind affluent urban areas - it's of course not the whole picture.

1.2 billion humans lack any access to electricity, and I would wager hundreds of millions, if not a billion or more, of those who do have access have only the bare minimum requirement of "access".

Only an estimated 36% of the world's population has access to smartphones (which I feel is probably the best way to measure access to a "super computer"), but I'm not sure that really means much either. Access to a computer is only as useful as what you can access upon it, and in countries like China (who make up 20% of the internet) where the information is extremely regulated by the state... what good does access really do? Even here in America information is becoming more and more regulated, except for us by corporations and the ultra-rich rather than the state.

I would argue that today it is only the rich who have access to electricity, and only the ultra-rich who have access to computers and the world of information. A more telling sign of how transhumanism would play out is that we have horrendous access to medical care in the United States and far worse in developing nations. We have what is almost transhumanism today with many medical procedures (to third-world countries, I would argue our medical system is proper transhumanism)... but only the wealthy amongst the wealthy can afford those things, while the rest of us have to drive ourselves into multiple life times of debt to afford them.

All of human history is a story of inequality; for all the progress we have made, we have only truly made progress amongst the ultra-rich. We are very much as the Athenians preaching about equality and democracy... these things are good, so long as you fit a very specific criteria. But like the Athenians we require massive amounts of slave labour to support our little experiment in equality... we just outsourced our slavery (*cheap labour*) to Guatamala, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Kenya, Pakistan and countless other countries rather than enslaving our own.

You and me, in comparison to the world, are the "ultra-rich", the world we live in is unbelievably privileged and "elite" compared to the overwhelming majority of the world, even amongst the lower middle class. The root problem is inequality, yes... I have no ethical problems with the act of transhumanism, only in who can afford said acts... but there is no reason to believe that will ever change. Inequality is growing, rapidly, amongst Western nations. Perhaps in a few generations the West will be the cheap labour of the new elite in China and Asian countries that ally themselves with the new global power... but no matter who is at the top, it always remains the same... a small number of people control the majority of the wealth, a middle class of fluctuating size enjoys the scraps, and it's all built upon the backs of those in poverty.

Trump, Xi Jingping, Saudi Princes, Russian oligarchs, corporate CEOs... these are the class of people who will always hold the power. We are just here to serve them and to live and die at their whim. We will be thrown scraps at their discretion, but those scraps will be just that... hand me downs of questionable quality that exist only to exploit us for profit rather than to better our lives.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Hydra009 on November 19, 2018, 12:39:18 AM
Quote from: Shiranu on November 18, 2018, 10:31:06 PMI would argue that today it is only the rich who have access to electricity, and only the ultra-rich who have access to computers and the world of information.
That's kinda the point though.  I'll concede that both of us are rich in the global sense, yet we're certainly a far cry from the US's upper crust.  Yet access to these technologies have filtered down to us, when previously they were exclusively available to the elite of the elite.  The most pessimistic prediction - that elites would hoard this technology and block access to it by everyone else - has not come to pass.  Quite the opposite.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Blackleaf on November 19, 2018, 01:39:47 AM
Quote from: Shiranu on November 18, 2018, 06:02:42 AM
Have you heard of the Netflix series, "Altered Carbon"? I just started it this morning, and within the first 30 minutes has already really hooked me on dealing with the fears I had above.

People are able to be "reborn" in new bodies thanks to, it seems, consciousness being stored in disks along the spine; so long as the brain remains intact (i'm guessing a bullet to the brain would corrupt the "data") and the disk remains intact, humans can be reborn into a new "sleeve".

Without going into much detail, the main character is reborn in the body of a prisoner, property of an ultra-wealthy man who has lived for over 300 years through this process. At the birthing site, he meets a middle aged white woman... except as they are reuniting her with her family, it turns out she was a 7-year old asian girl who was murdered. She was given the body by the state for free, and the body she inhabits was that of a prisoner. If the family wanted something more appropriate or to their liking, they should have paid like everyone else.

That, to me, is exactly the future of transhumanism if humanity does not shift away from unregulated capitalism... if you are rich, you can have what you like... and if you are poor, you get whatever scraps those in power are willing to throw you.

There is nothing exciting about that world, only horrifying and barbaric.

Would transferring data from one brain to another really be extending that life to begin with? If you die, and your memories are put in another person's body, does that person really become you or just another person with your traits? I don't think it really extends a person's life, but just creates the illusion of extended life.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Shiranu on November 19, 2018, 03:41:09 AM
Quote from: Hydra009 on November 19, 2018, 12:39:18 AM
That's kinda the point though.  I'll concede that both of us are rich in the global sense, yet we're certainly a far cry from the US's upper crust.  Yet access to these technologies have filtered down to us, when previously they were exclusively available to the elite of the elite.  The most pessimistic prediction - that elites would hoard this technology and block access to it by everyone else - has not come to pass.  Quite the opposite.

Electricity is far more easy to spread to the masses than advanced medical technology.

As for super computers... most people go into debt to buy a smartphone, we don't just pay for it out of pocket. And then we pay a large chunk of our monthly paycheck to continue service with it. And then we have to upgrade it quite regularly and continue the process of being in debt.

Cars are another great example; unless you buy a beater, a car is a massive debt-hole we sink ourselves into. An "average" car is around $23,000... that is more than a years worth of work to pay for one "necessary" item. Yes, we can buy them... but it will cost us an arm and a leg. The fact that everyone is in debt to own one does not prove they have become accessible for the masses, it just means the masses have accepted being in massive debt to own one. True access would not require selling your life away for said item.

To go back to medical... if you or me get sick, it is a big deal; we have to go months, sometimes years into debt over simple treatments because corporations are worried about making a profit instead of actually healing you. This is growing worse and worse with each year.

Even something as simple as housing has actually become, and is becoming, less and less accessible than it was for our parents and their parents before them. Why? Because there is money to be made.

We are given access to these wonderful things, but it always comes at a cost... and the cost is growing higher and higher. Education, technology, transportation, medical care... all of it is becoming more and more expensive. Shit, even food is prone to spike it prices. We are given the illusion of having things, but all we have is indebted to people with more power than us... and at a whim, they can take it back as they please.

And I completely disagree the elite don't horde technology... corporations and states have infinitely more powerful technology at their disposal than we can ever dream of  having in our lifetime.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Shiranu on November 19, 2018, 03:46:55 AM
Quote from: Blackleaf on November 19, 2018, 01:39:47 AM
Would transferring data from one brain to another really be extending that life to begin with? If you die, and your memories are put in another person's body, does that person really become you or just another person with your traits? I don't think it really extends a person's life, but just creates the illusion of extended life.

I would agree with that.

It's one problem I have had with teleporters in Star Trek... the concept, to me, of having all the matter demateralized, stored in a computer, then having the matter remateralized at another location sounds awfully alot like killing someone then recreating them somewhere else. But why would that new copy of you be "you"?

I have to admit though, I don't know quite how the process works in Altered Carbon... if the computer is where all brain activity is being routed through, then perhaps it becomes the "real" brain and thus the "real" person. If someone was to progressively replace pieces of their brain with computer technology, at what point would "they" cease to exist and a computer come to exist? Is there a specific section of the brain that contains the "soul" for a lack of a better word? If consciousness is dependent on this computer disk, then perhaps that is the true "soul".


Perhaps the original copy (brain based) dies, but every copy after that (being located in the computer chip) really does get reborn. But that doesn't really do much good for us organic souls who want to achieve immortality, does it? And given the soul becomes dependent on a computer chip... does that mean the reborn are even human, or just computers imitating humanity?

This shit right here is why I love sci-fi, and particularly cyberpunk, so damn much.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Shiranu on November 19, 2018, 03:52:45 AM
Also, I'm sorry I'm not better at expressing these things in shorter posts.
Title: Re: The concepts of Transhuman, Posthuman etc.
Post by: Baruch on November 19, 2018, 04:18:09 AM
Quote from: Shiranu on November 19, 2018, 03:52:45 AM
Also, I'm sorry I'm not better at expressing these things in shorter posts.

"Trump, Xi Jingping, Saudi Princes, Russian oligarchs, corporate CEOs... these are the class of people who will always hold the power. We are just here to serve them and to live and die at their whim."

This is a hard concept.  Tied in with Philosophical Zombies.  At what point does a beach cease to be a beach, if you remove one grain of sand at a time.  That is with something inanimate.  A living being is much more mysterious.  But then scientism says ... we understand that.

On inequality ... this is 5000 years old.  In Sumerian mythology, the humans were created because the lesser gods (middle class) didn't want to work they fields for the higher gods (upper class).  And fickle psychopaths too, the Flood happened because people slaving away at night kept the gods from getting a good night's sleep.  All societies are based on slavery (chattel, debt, wage) of some sort.  There is no free lunch, so work has to be done.  Neo-Liberals believe that thru financial magic a free lunch is possible.  Marx thought that steam power meant that eventually (as in robotics in our time) that human sweat labor would become unnecessary.  That was because in the 19th century carbon power seemed like a free lunch.  And in many ways it was.  Cheap concentrated energy.  We are moving into a time of expensive dispersed energy.  Humanity will survive, but not in a form we are familiar with.  And not a utopia, a dystopia.  Utopias are never real (see Christian notion of heaven).  Dystopias are all too real.